The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1887-06-06
The Rodyke Evictions.

Interest in the Irish struggle has for the
time being been transferred from the halls
OF Parliament to the humble cots of the Irish
tenants. Anxious to make out an excuse
for their coercion bill and impatient at the
orderly conduct of the Irish people, the Eng
fish ministry have resorted to system of
eyictions to provoke bloodshed and outrage.
1t is said that several landlords who were
about to settle with their tenants on terms
arranged under the plan of campaign, con-
Guided, upon hints from the government. to
insist on the full amount of rent under pain
of certain eviction. These evictions have
now been going on for more than week
under circumstances of outrageous cruelty
similar to those related in Saturdays de-
spatches. Two hundred people have been
turned out Of thel homes on the es
tates Of Lord Amnesty in Cavan: .
even on the barren island of Achir thirty
i've poor peasants have been eyicted
because they failed to pay the full amount of
their rent to Colonel Give, who lives
abroad on the fruits of their toll. The bru-
tai scenes described in the dispatches from
Ireland in Saturdays PRESS were no worse
than were expected when the work on the
Bodyke estates was planned The landlord.
OCallaghan, is one of the worst in Ireland,
and his tenants have been kept miserable by
system Of rack renting said to be the most
oppressive In all Ireland. Since 1870. for
nearly the whole lifetime of the poor girl
who was knocked down while defending her
fathers home, there has been constant
warfare between the tenants and landlord of
Bodyke Two years ago an attempt was
made to evict these people, but they resisted
with rifles and drove the police off. Since
then they have lived in state of alarm and.
though Ireland Is noninally aL peace. the
homes of these poor tenants have been in a
state OF constant preparation for attack such
as might have been found on the frontiers
OF Maine in the days when the Indians
sacked old Falmouth. Their houses were
barricaded, and every holding was sur
rounded by cheodL de .frise formed of
bushes and other distractions smeared with
tar. A regular system of scouts and the
blowing OF horns and ringing of bells kept
the people aware of the movements of their
enemies. The police, ON the other hand,
stationed their videttes on the surrounding
hills, while the sheriff had at his command
three hundred police, and the Irish police
are armed with rifles and drilled as soldiers,
besides two hundred men of the British reg
ular army. Even with such force at his
command the Bodyke tenants resisted with
an energy that may be inferred from tho
TACT that it took two hours and a half to
capture one house and turn from their home
the exhausted family.
So far the evictions have hardly served the
purpose for which the government has in
tended them. AT Bodyke the bailiffs were
stoned, scalded and set upon by bees which
the tenants let out on them; but such things
done in defence of a home can hardly be
passed off in England as high handed out
RACES to be bruited abroad in evidence of the
iendishness of the Irish people. At present
the state of public opinion among the Eng
fish is so ticklish that every little incident
has weight and no outrage committed by
the Irish is allowed to be forgotten. A par
ucularly choice morsel for the Tory papers
has been an outrage committed some time
ago in County Cork A party of rufians en-
tered the house of an obnoxious farmer
named Murphy, and cut off the hair Of one
=, his daughters and poured tar over the
head OF the other. The otfense of the girls
was. lexington speaking terms with one Of the